Business Process Management
EA leverage, instead of redundant, on the dicipline of BPM which has been the solution to achieve business excellence for almost three decades.Vinayak on BPM Series: BPM bus is still boarding passengers! - Part 1
For almost three decades now, business process management has been seen as a tool to achieve business excellence. Business organisations have implemented methodologies, standards & tools such as TQM, ISO 9000, Six Sigma, Business Process Re-engineering, Activity Based Management with various objectives such as enhancing customer satisfaction, reducing cost, increasing market share, improving productivity, etc. However, if you are one of those who believe that your organisation has missed the "business process" bus, then as per The state of BPM - 2008 report by Business Process Trends, you are not in minority.
The report is based on an on-line survey questionnaire responded to by members of Business Process Trends (BPTrends.com). A quick analysis of the profile of respondents reveals that the highest percentage (20%) of the respondents represented Financial Services / Insurance industry. As per the authors, the reason for this could be: "The fact that Financial companies used significantly more BPMS than other industries reflects the industry’s well-known role as the leading consumer of the new computer/software technology that provides a competitive edge. (In other surveys we have asked BPMS vendors what types of companies they are targeting or selling their products to, and Finance invariably heads the list.)". The explanation cannot be completely agreed with, especially if the aim of the survey is to gauge adoption of Business Process Management (BPM) and not Business Process Management systems (BPMS) amongst business organisations.
Following are some of the key statistics published in the report:
52% of the respondents believed that their organisations very occasionally or never use standard or similar processes across units that perform similar tasks
66% of the respondents stated that their organisations have occasionally or never defined performance measures for evaluating the success of all major processes and sub-processes.
60% of the respondents stated that their organisation occasionally or never defined & documented the skills required to perform the task as part of the major processes.
70% of the respondents stated that their organisations occasionally or never trained managers to analyse, design and manage processes.
64% of the respondents felt that managers in their organisation occasionally or never used performance data to manage their processes.
57% of the respondents worked for organisations which have occasionally or never implemented process improvement programs.
When asked about the most important software tool for BPM initiative in their organisation, following responses were provided by respondents:
31%: Graphics tools such as Visio / Powerpoint
24%: Process modeling tool
13%: BPMS or execution environment
3%: Simulation
1%: Business Activity Monitoring
Note: The complete "The state of BPM - 2008" report can be downloaded from BPTrends website.
^ TOP
Business process engineering
1.0 IntroductionBusiness Processes are considered as the process solution to support the enterprise function rather as part the enterprise definition. It similar to roads in a city rather than the city. Enterprise definition describes the Enterprise and Business Processes describe the business behavior. In the business architecture effort, it is important to keep business process analysis at the high level to avoid “ paralysis by analysis”. Detail business processes analysis occurred at the segment architecture in a specific area.
1.1 BPR has been an established paradigm
BPR has been a established paradigm since 1990 after Michael Hammer, a former professor of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), published an article in the Harvard Business Review. In the same year as Hammer published his paper, A similar idea was advocated by Thomas H. Davenport and J. Short (1990), at that time a member of the Ernst & Young research center, in a paper published in the Sloan Management Review.
1.2 EA leverage on BPR
Instead of becoming an business process engineering expert, EA professional relies on BPR professional for business processes reengineering in the business architecture optimization effort. Enterprise architecture is not business process centric as many EA practitioners believed. Frequently, the first thing of EA is to model enterprise processes. The enterprise architects are asked to model all enterprise wide business processes to know the business. The business process centric approach has frequently resulted to the EA “paralysis by analysis” because business process modeling are the sequential combination of function components and process engineers are trained to enumerate all the combination in an exhaustive approach. As a result, the architects have delivered enormous amount of business process charts to become expensive wall paper.
2 Business processes are the process solution to support business function.
2.1 Business functions
Business processes are the solution to support business function rather than as part of enterprise definition.
2.2 Business processes
Business function is describe in the function hierarchical chart, for example :
Business process is describe in flow. For example
2.3 Many ways to achieve a function
There are many way to achieve on business function, a business function, there are many business processes.
2.4 The two role of business processes in EA
The confusing of business process due the fact that Business processes serves two roles in Enterprise Architecture. From business architecture point of view, business process serve as the tool to achieve business excellence Business processes. From software development view, business processes serve as the requirements for business process automation.
3 Business processes must be reengineered
Business processes must be redesign before automation to avoid the situation of “Paving the cow path”, however, instead of conduct business process engineering in a “Big Bang” approach to design business process for the entire enterprise, business process reengineering occurs at segment architecture because Business process subject to localization and it is a function of technology evolution.
3.1 Business processes evolved with technology evolution
3.2 Business processes subject to localization
Business processes are sequential flow of different business function . It subject to location for example : the best route for you to go to work is not necessary the best route for me. Because I live in a different location.
3.3 Business architecture with high level business process modeling
3.4 Business Process Reengineering occurs incrementally in segment architecture.
4. The business process modeling standards
Business modeling is supported by a mix of emerging industry standards that include the following:
4.1 Business Process Modeling Notation (BPMN) — A graphic notation for representing business processes. BPMN defines a Business Process Diagram, which is based on flowcharting techniques customized for business process, and a mapping to BPEL executable semantics (see below). The BPMN industry standard is maintained by the OMG.
4.2 Unified Modeling Language (UML) — The industry-standard visual modeling language for specifying software-intensive systems can also be used to model business processes. In particular, UML Activity diagrams provide many of the workflow modeling constructs furnished by BPMN. The UML industry standard is maintained by the OMG. For more information about the UML standard, check out the UML Forum.
4.3 Business Process Executable Language (BPEL) — An XML-based executable language for representing business processes. BPEL is an orchestration language (cf. choreography language, such as WS-CDL), and consequently focuses on the view of one business participant. The BPEL industry standard is maintained by OASIS.
4.4 Web Services Choreography Description Language (WS-CDL) — An XML-based non-executable language that represents global business processes. WS-CDL is a choreography language (cf. orchestration language, such as BPEL), and consequently, describes peer-to-peer collaborations of multiple business participants working on a common business goal. The BPEL industry standard is maintained by W3C.
5. EA to enable agile business process reengineering
EA is the effort to enalbe agile business process engineering via business process standardizatin. James Taylor article on Reuse and agility with rules
^ TOP
Business modeling
IDEFUML
Architecture markup language
Architecture definition language
Chao's approach ^ TOP
Business process is not part of enterprsie definition
1. THE MYTH OF BUSINESS PROCESS CENTRIC EAEnterprise architecture is not business process centric as many EA practitioners believed. Frequently, the first thing of EA is to model enterprise processes. The enterprise architects are asked to model all enterprise wide business processes to know the business. The business process centric approach has frequently resulted to the EA “paralysis by analysis” because business process modeling are the sequential combination of function components and process engineers are trained to enumerate all the combination in an exhaustive approach. As a result, the architects have delivered enormous amount of business process charts to become expensive wall paper.
1.1 Business processes is not part of enterprise definition
Business processes are the solution to achieve the enterprise mission rather than as part of enterprise definition. Business Architecture is the effort to know the enterprise definition and understand its high level business processes. Enterprise definition describes the enterprise from the aspect of mission, function, information, organization, location and workload.
1.2 The two role of business processes in EA
The confusing of business process due the fact that Business processes serves two roles in Enterprise Architecture. From business architecture point of view, business process serve as the tool to achieve business excellence Business processes. From software development view, business processes serve as the requirements for business process automation.
2. BUSINESS PROCESS MUST BE REENGINEERING BEFORE AUTOMATION
Business process must be reengineered before automation
Business processes are the tool which must be reengineering before automation to avoid “Paving the cow path”.
2.1 Business processes are a function of technology evolution
3. BPR by subject experts
Instead of becoming an business process engineering expert, EA professionl relies on BPR professional for business processs reengineering in the business architecture optimization effort. BPR has been a established paradigm since 1990 after Michael Hammer, a former p
BPR has being a establish paradigm Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), published an article in the Harvard Business Review. In the same year as Hammer published his paper, A similar idea was advocated by Thomas H. Davenport and J. Short (1990), at that time a member of the Ernst & Young research center, in a paper published in the Sloan Management Review.
EA ENABALE BUSINESS PROCESS REUSE VIA STANDARDIZATION
EA is the effort to enable agile and simple business process engineering via business process standardization effort to create the business process building blocks.
BUSINESS PROCESS REENGINEERING AT LOCAL LEVEL
2. Business Process Reengineering occurs incrementally in segment architecture.
Business process must be reengineered before automation to avoid the situation to “Pave the cow path”. However, instead of a “Big Bang” approach, business processes reengineering will be better off to occur at the segment architecture level rather than at the business architecture level.
Business process engineering design the optimize business process based on local culture and available technologies. It is considered as the process solution to support the enterprise mission rather as part the enterprise definition. It similar to roads in a city to take the stakeholders from one point to the other. There are many ways to take one from point A to point B. Business process reengineering is the effort to optimize the path depends on where you are and what vehicle you have. Business definition describes the enterprise strategic vision and business processes describe the business tactic. Business processes are a function of technologies evolution and it subject to localizes business processes reengineering. Enterprise definition describe the business vision and strategic direction for competition, it is not a function of business processes and technology.
Business processes must be redesign before automation to avoid the situation of “Paving the cow path”, however, instead of conduct business process engineering in a “Big Bang” approach to design business process for the entire enterprise, business process reengineering occurs at segment architecture because Business process subject to localization and it is a function of technology evolution.
^ TOP
The challenge
Business processes are sequential flow of different business function . It subject to location for example : the best route for you to go to work is not necessary the best route for me. Because I live in a different location.
The fact is that business process reengineering is unique to each business owner based on the common function components. Business process reengineering (BPR) has been the paradigm to reengineer business process for the local business owners need ,
Business processes for optimization pursues the goal of uniqueness to win the edge of competition.
^ TOP